meanwhile, back at the Surge

[Thor]

Nuke it from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

 

[forestal]

You are also overlooking the fact that the Japanese were following the orders of their divine emperor to surrender to the U.S. and work towards peace. In Iraq, however, their divine inspiration is telling them to kill us any chance they get.

...where I, ever so painfully, agree with my good pal forestal;

We wiped Germany and Japan OUT. We were in total control and ALLOWED them to take over at out time and pace.

Iraq, we never subdued. We never secured the borders. We never killed all the bad guys. We've got this giant tar baby and there sits the manpower needed to secure the country with its own citizens and what is happening? We're still trying to do it, four years later? We can't make them or teach them to trust each other and have common bonds. There is no insurgents unless Iraqi's allow it. There is no outside interference unless we allow it.

Bush has us running around plugging holes in the dike with our fingers and the surge is simply more fingers, while water is pouring over the top.

Evey single US soldier doing police and guard work in Iraq is one more than should be there at this late date. Either Iraqi's won't do it because it's easier to let us or they won't do it for whaterver ethnic, religious or tribal reason they have. There is no "Iraq" and that was the great misjudgement.

 

[forestal]

pfaaa, we can't get them to stand up if they just to lay down and kick the legs out from under us.

The only thing we've succeeded in doing is creating an environment where Al Qaeda, an an insurgency can flourish.

We would have been better off staying out of Iraq. The only groups who have benefitted have been the Iranians, the Syrians, and Usama bin Laden.

I have to agree with some of your specifics, but still disagree with the big picture. Many of the specifics of this war are different than some of the bigger and smaller ones we've had before, but the big picture is that it takes a long time to get a country to stand up to a whole new way of life. We're still in between the Koreas, 50+ years later. We still have a strong presence in Japan, because we wrote their Constitution such that they can't do any more than almost defend themselves. 60+ years later. We live in a microwave society, and we're fighting campfire problems. It's going to take longer. The specifics of border control, well, you're right on there. Getting them to get the fear out is going to take a lot longer. Remember, we walked away from them once, and we have strong, loud, stupid voices calling for our withdrawal too soon again. They have no reason to trust us. None. Meanwhile, we didn't secure their borders, and they fight like children (except with AK-47's) amongst themselves. I do think there really was no strong "Iraq", though, and that was a miscalculation on our part.

 

[AndyMarquisLIVE]

pfaaa, we can't get them to stand up if they just to lay down and kick the legs out from under us.

The only thing we've succeeded in doing is creating an environment where Al Qaeda, an an insurgency can flourish.

We would have been better off staying out of Iraq. The only groups who have benefitted have been the Iranians, the Syrians, and Usama bin Laden.

But we're there.

So the war's not going as you like it, we should just leave?

 

[forestal]

Well,we're losing, and we can't win, so yep, time to pack up and bring our troops home to their loving families.

If you don't like losing, don't pick wars you can't win.






2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long
in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will
be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your
strength.
3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of
the State will not be equal to the strain.
4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped,
your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains
will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man,
however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme. importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war who can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.

10. Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be
maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to
maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be

20. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the
arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril.

“No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”

- "Time . . . is less likely to bring favor to the victor than to the
vanquished.

But we're there.

So the war's not going as you like it, we should just leave?

 

[ylexot]

What we are doing now amounts to under dosing an antibiotic. It's not enough to kill the disease and it's creating a resistance to the medicine in the mean time.

Nice analogy